The present invention relates to smoking appliances, particularly narghiles, and to tobacco cartridges for use in such appliances.
A narghile, sometimes called a hookah or water pipe, is an oriental tobacco pipe in which smoke is drawn through a container of water by means of a flexible suction tube received within the smoker's mouth. Narghiles have been used for hundreds of years with little changes in their basic construction. They generally include a water container for containing a quantity of water, a tobacco bowl or head for receiving a quantity of tobacco to be burnt in order to produce smoke, and a suction tube communicating with the container above the level of the water therein for drawing smoke from the tobacco head through the water and the flexible suction tube into the mouth of the smoker.
The manner of using such narghiles has also changed very little over the years. Thus, when the narghile is to be used, a quantity of tobacco is placed by hand into the tobacco bowl, and then a glowing ember, e.g. of coal or wood, is placed over the tobacco so as to ignite the tobacco and thereby to produce the smoke. After each such use of the narghile, it has to be cleaned by removing and disposing the residue ashes of the tobacco and the ember, and cleaning the bowl.
The foregoing actions are both time-consuming and inconvenient, similar to the time-consuming and inconvenient actions involved in rolling cigarettes in the early days of cigarette smoking. Moreover, such narghiles utilize only the water for filtering out undesired contents of the smoke produced by the ignited tobacco. In addition, during the use of the narghile, liquids tend to settle out and to drop into the water container, thereby requiring frequent cleaning of the water container.
Similar inconvenient and time-consuming activities are required with respect to other smoking appliances, such as the conventional smoker's pipe.